PENUMBRA, a Peacekeepers reboot
A flicker of light amidst the shadows - brought to you by the Knockout Gun Gals (with some contributions from Tiltjuice, Cylarn, and Mincaldenteans)
Down in the tropics, real business can only be done at night. That was the lesson from the suits in Singapore, anyway. The company lawyers and their shark-toothed grins strolled on in like they owned the world. Maybe right there and right then they did, who knows? I sure didn’t. Anyway, they’d sent us all off to Bangladesh. Me, my boss, and two other jobbers from Panorama. Hook up with the local coppers and figure out just who’d torched our warehouse in the Port of Chittagong.
They’d also explained, in not so many words, just how bent some of those local coppers could be. The money and favors the company had done weren’t giving much of a return. So we shouldn’t feel too guilty about taking silver back from the coppers - if we needed to. Cut up rough where the action happened, cut smoother in the outside world. Because that's what this was about, in the end, a report for the insurers.
That’s the way it always works with us, though. The client sets the rules we play by. Why not, they pay the bills and money makes the world go round. They say Marquis of Queensberry, we play straight and up the school. They say otherwise, well, we do what we have to.
I’m still not sure if that’s a comfort or not.
The thump of the business jet’s landing gear on the runway never failed to set her leg to throbbing. Mabel Moran sat and waited, instead studying the two strangers. A woman and a man. Neither of whom she’d mind getting a leg over if she felt low enough. Both of them looked like Class, in their own way. One modern, one old-fashioned.
So what are your stories, then? she didn’t ask. How did you get swept up in all this?
Everyone here had a story, but no one ever really mentioned it.
Well. Maybe one of these tropical nights that would change. Serious business, and all that.
The co-pilot came back, out the cockpit. A tall slab of beef, he was, standing awkwardly in the aisle. All polite businesslike smile and white uniform that would have blinded all of them if he’d been standing outside. “Welcome to Chittagong. The corporation has placed us on standby here at the airport. Please feel free to let us know if you need transportation to other parts of Asia.”
With a grunt, Mabel pushed herself out of the leather-fronted seat. Swinging her pack off the floor and over her shoulder, she balanced on her cane, anxious to move. The passage through Bangladeshi customs and immigration was as quick as those things usually were, and then they were outside.
It didn’t take long for the sweat to start rolling down her forehead and neck. But it wasn’t too different from Singapore, at least. Even if both places had her walking through a solid wall of heat and humidity. The heat coming up off the sidewalks set the air to waving like a giant convection oven. The sky was overcast, too. Light rain coming down. Well, at least that washed out the smog.
“Car park’s a bit of a hike,” she said, jutting her chin out to indicate the way. The rolling Irish tones somehow smoothed out the heat, or did something to it that lifted it for a second. At least for herself. She couldn’t speak for the others.
The sun beating down on the company’s armored sedan was neatly fended off by the icy air conditioning. Nothing but the best for them when they were on the job. The trunks had all the usual kit - fake documents and IDs, radios, cash, tracking devices, cameras, clean weapons for self-defence. Those last weren’t always available, but the Powers That Were must’ve thought Bangladesh a rough enough neighborhood to hand them out. Normally that was Sharp Focus’ biz, though the suits had said there’d be one coming in, and indeed there’d been an extra tote bag with a stick, pistol and shotgun in it. The tinted windows blocked out any would-be curious rubberneckers. Or bored ones, given the horrendous traffic. Clots and clots of oil and cargo trucks, two or three people on a motorbike, pedestrians, cars changing lanes. Spurts of honking. The harassed-looking traffic cops would have been too busy, but the drivers waiting might have looked for something to take away their irritation for a moment. The sixteen-kilometre trip from the airport had somehow become half an hour of listening to Bangladeshi rock on the radio, and five minutes of introduction. Which it hadn’t been all bad, to tell the truth. Most of it was brassy, bold; drum-heavy or odd mixes with strings and flutes. But the two that hit her fancy were simpler, rather bluesy. Lots of guitar, low-key spoken-word lyrics. Something she’d have to learn more about if she had the time.
The hotel she’d picked out was as close to the Chittagong waterfront as she could get them. Two buildings at a right angle, very pale orange. Practically next door to a central cargo station. The burned-down warehouse was there too, next to the port area. Most of the police stations were more inland.
Down went her bag and her light jacket as soon as she entered the room she was sharing with the other woman, Anichka.
“Time to work out the plan with the boys, you think?” Mabel straightened up, balancing carefully on her cane. “Where to go, what to do, who to squeeze?”
